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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    The bonuses in AD&D were lower (you didn't get a +1 until 15ish, it was much harder to raise stats, and you couldn't apply them to as many things),
    However, 2E's skill system consisted of taking an attribute and rolling under it - so every point mattered (whereas in 3E and up, only every two points matter for skill rolls). This system is optional, but prominent in the PHB and as near as I can tell most DMs did use it.

    For example, in 2E, a str-16 character is 20% better at swimming than a str-12 character, and an untrained character can't swim at all (because water hazards are uncommon enough that no character is crippled by being unable to swim). In 3E and up, the attribute difference is only 10%. 3E keeps the difference between trained and untrained high (15% + 5%/level), 4E locks it at 25%, and 5E locks it as low as 15%.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    However, 2E's skill system consisted of taking an attribute and rolling under it - so every point mattered (whereas in 3E and up, only every two points matter for skill rolls). This system is optional, but prominent in the PHB and as near as I can tell most DMs did use it.
    The lower bonuses part was just referring to the d20 rolls, not skill rolls. I did mention the roll-under nature of skills, though my phrasing was probably a bit unclear; I should have said "Given that you're either not using a skill system (in which case stats don't really matter) or you're using a roll-under system (which doesn't use your stat bonus), knowing that you're likable but clueless is more important than knowing your exact stats."

    If you have mediocre scores in 2e you're certainly going to suck at some skills, but if you have any bonus at all that's generally good enough for skill purposes--the difference between a 15 and an 18 is just 4%, while the difference between a 15 and an 18 in 3e is 10%, so pumping your stats as high as possible isn't as necessary to be competent at skills.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    If you have mediocre scores in 2e you're certainly going to suck at some skills, but if you have any bonus at all that's generally good enough for skill purposes--the difference between a 15 and an 18 is just 4%
    Skill checks are supposed to be 1d20, not 1d100, so that's 20%.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Why not have a skill system of rolling under, skill points inflate the number, obstacles decrease the number?

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Because there is a percieved benefit in always having the same basic mechanic for everything. Roll d20, apply modifier, reach Target Number.

    This is the one thing that I think d20 did perfectly. And the lack of it is what makes particularly AD&D so difficult to get into. A roll under system has exactly the same outcome as a DC 20 system and I think the benefit of having a single universal mechanic for everything by far outweighs anything that could be gained by introducing other mechanics for individual things.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Because there is a percieved benefit in always having the same basic mechanic for everything. Roll d20, apply modifier, reach Target Number.

    This is the one thing that I think d20 did perfectly. And the lack of it is what makes particularly AD&D so difficult to get into. A roll under system has exactly the same outcome as a DC 20 system and I think the benefit of having a single universal mechanic for everything by far outweighs anything that could be gained by introducing other mechanics for individual things.
    I mostly agree with this. D&D doesn't really need subsystems, since at the end of the day it's only used for one thing.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Anderlith View Post
    Why not have a skill system of rolling under, skill points inflate the number, obstacles decrease the number?
    Rolling 1d20 under a 1-20 skill value has the same odds as a DC 21 check using that skill value as a bonus to the roll, and the latter is more consistent with e.g. how attack rolls work. People like to think that rolling high is good.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Because there is a percieved benefit in always having the same basic mechanic for everything. Roll d20, apply modifier, reach Target Number.

    This is the one thing that I think d20 did perfectly. And the lack of it is what makes particularly AD&D so difficult to get into. A roll under system has exactly the same outcome as a DC 20 system and I think the benefit of having a single universal mechanic for everything by far outweighs anything that could be gained by introducing other mechanics for individual things.
    Even though I realy like ADD I agree with this.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Rolling 1d20 under a 1-20 skill value has the same odds as a DC 21 check using that skill value as a bonus to the roll, and the latter is more consistent with e.g. how attack rolls work. People like to think that rolling high is good.
    So why not make every point of ability score count?
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Rolling 1d20 under a 1-20 skill value has the same odds as a DC 21 check using that skill value as a bonus to the roll, and the latter is more consistent with e.g. how attack rolls work. People like to think that rolling high is good.
    It's not just "rolling high is good" but it's consistency.

    ADnD 2e:

    Attack roll: Higher is better.
    HP: Higher is better.
    Saving throw: Lower is better (it's roll over).
    Saving throw roll: Higher is better.
    Skill roll: Lower is better.
    THAC0: Lower is better.
    AC: Lower is better.

    A +1 armor gives -1 to AC. The inconsistency really shows up in some 2e-based games. Oh, this weapon gives -1 THAC0...is that good? Well, supposedly it is, but did they code it correctly? I've at least found that the ADnD books are good about saying things like -1 bonus, or +1 penalty. The Bonus/Penalty are key.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    So why not make every point of ability score count?
    I recommended that on my survey replies.

    If it were me I'd take ability off "to hit" rolls and use the full value-10 as a modifier for damage and use the ability as the base value for skills (DC21 for "average" skill tasks).

    8 to 18 should be a big difference. Even if you were using the scores as the base rather than the modifiers you STILL have the lower score "win" 11.25% of the time and tie another 2.5%. That's non-negligable, if you use modifiers then the higher score only "wins" 70% of the time, ties 3.75%, and outright loses 26.25%.

    Your 8 strength bookworm outright wins an arm-wrestling match with an 18 or 19 strength jock over a quarter of the time. I refuse to houserule "don't bother to roll for forgone conclusions" on things that have a better than 1 in 4 chance of coming up with the allegedly impossible result. Appearantly 19 to 8 strength is actually a pretty minor difference.

    11.25% I can rationallize if it happens on adventuring rather than an arm-wrestling contest, oddities of footing, grip, whatever, the lower strength guy occassionally gets the edge "in the field", and that's where I want the system to work, but 70 to 26.25 just isn't that signficant, that the sort of difference I expect from a fairly marginal change.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell View Post
    I mostly agree with this. D&D doesn't really need subsystems, since at the end of the day it's only used for one thing.
    I find it depends, and that's highly subjective for everyone. 4E is uniform for everything. Some like that, some don't. 3E has basic combat, vancian magic, a maneuver system, incarnum system, psionic point system, invocation system, etc. Some like that, some don't. However, the one uniform thing about 3E is rolling high is always the goal. You're always adding and always looking for the higher number when resolving randomness for tasks. In 2E, you wanted to roll high for saving throws, low for proficiencies, and do algebra for THAC0. For psionics, you wanted to roll low but not a 1, some number between 1 and 20 was your sweet spot perfection calculated based on the individual science or devotion, and 20 was bad!

    Subsystems aren't inherently good or bad. It depends on the implementation.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Anderlith
    Why not have a skill system of rolling under, skill points inflate the number, obstacles decrease the number?
    If you switch that around, that's what we already have; a roll-over system where skill points decrease the number you need on the die and obstacles increase it.

    Addition is marginally easier than subtraction, and the nice consistency of "higher is better, always" decreases the learning curve for the game.

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    So why not make every point of ability score count?
    Why don't they do that? Does anyone know an actual reason besides the fact that it's a sacred cow thing? I don't know of any.

    I think they should subtract 10 from Ability scores and just make every point count. It would look like Mutants & Masterminds, but that's frankly a better starting point for a d20 system than 3.5, IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by navar100
    Subsystems aren't inherently good or bad. It depends on the implementation.
    I look at it this way: Each subsystem in the game increases the learning curve and the number of rules that have to be memorized or else looked up in the middle of a game, the number of pages devoted to explaining rules in the book, and so on. So there is a cost for each additional subsystem regardless of implementation.

    A subsystem has to not only just be good, it has to be so good that it outweighs that learning/rules bloat cost. Most do not qualify, in my book.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Scowling Dragon View Post
    Even though I realy like ADD I agree with this.
    It's the only reason I'm not playing AD&D exclusively.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Stubbazubba View Post
    Why don't they do that? Does anyone know an actual reason besides the fact that it's a sacred cow thing? I don't know of any.
    It's a sacred cow thing.

    They've expanded it a bit by making (for example) feat requirements at the odd numbers, but that's just a self-justifying bit of game-hackery; those requirements could just as easily be on the evens.

    There's also ability score damage in 3.x, but I'm hoping never to have to deal with that particular math cascade again.

    -O

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Skill checks are supposed to be 1d20, not 1d100, so that's 20%.
    Whoops, I was thinking 3d6 rather than 1d20. I've played GURPS more recently than AD&D and I guess it shows. In that case, yes, a flat distribution makes lower stats a bigger deal, though the fact that you're rolling against your own score (which will always have the same difficulty, plus or minus circumstantial modifiers) rather than an opponent's score (which he can increase as you and he level and which could use the opponent's good stat vs. your weak stat) still makes dumpster-diving for every stat boost you can find generally less important than in 3e.

    Quote Originally Posted by navar100 View Post
    Subsystems aren't inherently good or bad. It depends on the implementation.
    Agreed. Thiago said subsystems aren't needed because D&D is "only used for one thing," but that "one thing" is very broad and there are lots of moving parts in that "one thing." In fact, I'd argue that in a focused game like D&D it's better to have multiple subsystems than one universal mechanic. I go into more detail in the spoiler (because writing multi-paragraph digressions when I'm bored is kinda my thing ) but here's the gist of it: in a universal system where the game types and characters can vary tremendously, and where shooting and flying and talking and diving and so forth are all given equal screen time, having one unified mechanic is a good thing; in a focused system where game times are narrower and characters need competence in certain areas, and shooting and stabbing are given more screen time than everything else, mixing up the mechanics is a good thing.

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    In a more generic game like, say, GURPS, characters are going to be a heck of a lot more varied than D&D characters, since (A) the abilities are much more granular, (B) more game foci are supported, and (C) point-based systems allow both more specialized and more generalized characters than level-based systems.

    By point A, I mean both that abilities aren't interconnected like D&D's level-based stats (so you can improve them individually with independent floors and ceilings), and that GURPS has narrow skills like "good with spears" where D&D has wide skills like BAB and so forth. By point B, I mean that in terms of important given to various mechanics D&D is essentially combat first, exploration and lateral thinking second, talking third, and everything else fourth, whereas a generic system might (and probably does) give as much or more attention to the noncombat stuff as to the combat stuff. By point C, I mean that while D&D rewards specialization, it still requires minimum levels of competence in various areas by virtue of having level-based stats; in GURPS, it's possible both to sink all your points into one thing to be amazing at that and suck at everything else and to spread your points out so broadly that you can't really do anything at all.

    So, comparing that to D&D, we see that everyone shares some common stats (BAB, saves, skill maxima, etc.) that go up by level, combat stuff is more varied and defined than noncombat stuff, and everyone needs to have their niche. If combat and social skills both worked the same way, either both are equally simple (roll BAB or Diplomacy, hit, apply effect, repeat) in which case the party face is bored because he rolls Diplomacy rarely and the party fighter rolls attack every round, or both are equally complicated (lots of combat maneuvers, lots of social skills, lots of fiddly modifiers) in which case you implicitly (and explicitly, if you buy combat and social stuff with the same resource) place equal importance on both systems when that isn't (supposed to be) the case, and spend more time on social stuff and less time on combat stuff than is desired.

    If you instead separate out the combat stuff and the way it works (one auto-improving combat stat, ablative defenses, at-will default maneuvers) from the social stuff and the way it works (multiple selectively-improving social stats, graduated binary defenses, per-encounter skill tricks) you can give the two different levels of granularity, speed of resolution, importance of focus, and so forth. You can then independently tune the different subsystems to get what you want out of them.

    This also helps from a metagame marketing perspective: D&D has plenty of players who want complex mechanics for combat, the bare minimum for climbing and running and similar, and none whatsoever for anything else; they want fiddly combat, but no mechanics to get in the way of roleplaying. Whether you agree or disagree with their viewpoint, it's been fairly well established that some people won't buy a certain edition because they think codified noncombat mechanics turns a roleplaying game into Diablo, some people won't buy a certain edition because they think the lack of codified noncombat mechanics turns a roleplaying game into an MMO, some people think too much mechanical noncombat focus makes the game overly restricting rollplaying, and some people think to little mechanical noncombat focus makes the game into purely hack-n-slash.

    While a system like GURPS actually makes it easier for the people who don't want noncombat mechanics in the game (there are no "classes" that trade combat skill for noncombat skill, ignoring the noncombat stuff in your game is equivalent to no characters taking noncombat stuff and the game already accounts for the latter, and so forth), if seeing noncombat mechanics mixed in with the combat mechanics at all will turn them off from the game then the tweakability of noncombat stuff doesn't matter.

    Now, in D&D having separate subsystems for noncombat stuff hasn't worked out as well as one could hope: The noncombat stuff was mostly an afterthought in AD&D, the 3e devs ignored any noncombat stuff that wasn't magic, and skill challenges/martial practices/rituals/etc. in 4e are either fairly flawed or missing things that players want, but none of that means the concept is flawed. On the contrary, the popularity of the late-3e subsystems shows that having different mechanics even within the combat sphere is appreciated, and all of the homebrew out there to expand and tweak diplomacy/stealth/crafting/etc. and the varying complexity thereof shows that people have differing goals for the noncombat parts of their games but they value it enough to make it deeper and more interesting.


    Quote Originally Posted by Stubbazubba
    I look at it this way: Each subsystem in the game increases the learning curve and the number of rules that have to be memorized or else looked up in the middle of a game, the number of pages devoted to explaining rules in the book, and so on. So there is a cost for each additional subsystem regardless of implementation.

    A subsystem has to not only just be good, it has to be so good that it outweighs that learning/rules bloat cost. Most do not qualify, in my book.
    The nice thing about D&D subsystems is that players don't need to know them all. If you're playing a bard, you need to know how your music works, what your spells do, how skill tricks work, what ACFs are out there, and so on, but no one else does...and the same applies for binders, totemists, psions, and other classes. That's actually one of the reasons D&D is still as popular as it is, I think: in the old days, you handed a player a fighter, explained basic combat mechanics (i.e. "Here are the four stats and three kinds of rolls you will ever need to know") and everything else was learned as you went along, so there was a very much lower barrier to entry, and even in 3e Mr. Fighter can take feats that only interact with the stuff he already knows and can basically ignore skills since he only needs to know 2+Int of them, really.

    In contrast, more universal systems require a bigger up-front investment, more thought in picking options, and so on. On this very forum, we had people posting shortly after 4e was released that they didn't like not having a "beginner class" and that the fighter had too many fiddly parts because resource management, forced movement, and such weren't optional anymore...and that's just a more universal-ified D&D, not a points-based system or anything!

    The problem with D&D, of course, is that the beginner classes have been weaker than the "veteran" classes and the devs have neglected them for that reason, rather than having the beginner classes being just as powerful as (but much more simple and straightforward than) the veteran classes. If the power variance between the two was not mundane vs. magic but rather easy fighter and warlock vs. complex warblade and wizard and the classes in all categories were actually similar in power, you'd see the benefits of subsystem design without the drawbacks of developer bias.
    Last edited by PairO'Dice Lost; 2012-11-26 at 02:47 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    So why not make every point of ability score count?
    That's what I want them to do, yes.

    WOTC has either not done the math yet, or they think that it would be a positive trait for their system if the dumb barbarian can routinely make knowledge checks that the smart wizard fails at, or said wizard to punch down doors that the barbarian can't. There's only a +7 difference between their skill mods, after all.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    That's what I want them to do, yes.

    WOTC has either not done the math yet, or they think that it would be a positive trait for their system if the dumb barbarian can routinely make knowledge checks that the smart wizard fails at, or said wizard to punch down doors that the barbarian can't. There's only a +7 difference between their skill mods, after all.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    WotC can't do math, forget hasn't tried the math. We all know that already.
    I honestly don't know, here. While every-point-counts has a certain appeal, I think there's some big downsides.

    (1) Stats are now twice as important, since we're still rolling a d20 and effectively doubling the bonus. This means other mods will either need to be doubled, too ... or they become irrelevant, which leads in turn to DC inflation.

    Now the following two are only if this is a universal part of Next as opposed to a special sub-system used only for skills. If it's a sub-system, then there's less of an issue, but ... well, you have two competing, similar sub-systems at that point and I don't think that's desirable, either.

    (2) If this is also used for attacks and AC, the difference between top and bottom becomes a bit too huge, IMO, for a d20's range. You end up with ACs ranging from (say) 8 to 22 or more at 1st level for PCs. Likewise with attack bonuses ... which is fine for some degree of niche protection, but seriously hinders anyone who took fairly balanced stats instead of maxing out their prime requisite.

    (3) Saving throw bonuses likewise get crazy, and IMO in a much worse way. If every stat can indeed be used for a saving throw like the designers plan, the gulf between "best" and "worst" save is just game-shatteringly big. Save-or-suck spells become just that much more reliable.

    So, while I think the skill system under bounded accuracy is almost aggressively bad, I don't think this is a good solution to it given the design restrictions we have.

    -O

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    That's what I want them to do, yes.

    WOTC has either not done the math yet, or they think that it would be a positive trait for their system if the dumb barbarian can routinely make knowledge checks that the smart wizard fails at, or said wizard to punch down doors that the barbarian can't. There's only a +7 difference between their skill mods, after all.
    -10 take half doesn't actually have anything to do with the disparity of a wizard and a barbarian. If they wanted to make a high-strength barbarian that much stronger than a low-strength wizard, then they would simply allow the barbarian to get a higher strength score. Giving the barbarian a strength score of 36 and the wizard a score of 6 would be the same as making every point count for 1.

    The real issue here is the amount of randomness being applied to the numbers. If you wanted there to be less of a range of how good or bad a character can do due to random chance, then you need to use a less random replacement of the d20 roll. Use 2d10, 3d6, 1d10+5, 1d6+7, etc etc.

    However, if you start to narrow the range of possible results like that, then you run into our old friend of stat inflation again. If it's really impossible for the wizard to out-armwrestle a wizard, then you're likely also going to make it impossible for a trained fighter to miss a goblin, or for a dumb barbarian to resist a clever wizard's magic. Everything becomes certain, and thus dull.

    A wizard being able to out arm-wrestle the barbarian is a feature, not a flaw. It's essentially the whole basis of DnD. Does it cause things you don't like sometimes? Yes, but that's the whole point of it being random. Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    A wizard being able to out arm-wrestle the barbarian is a feature, not a flaw.
    Then I suppose that it's also a feature that the chance for him to do so goes up by each successive edition? Because the bonus for being trained has gone steadily down ever since 3E, and 5E also reduces the spread in ability scores.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    A wizard being able to out arm-wrestle the barbarian is a feature, not a flaw. It's essentially the whole basis of DnD. Does it cause things you don't like sometimes? Yes, but that's the whole point of it being random. Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't.
    Agreed. Players want their 20-Str barbarian to never lose in a strength-based contest against a 5-Str wizard because they don't like being shown up by a wimpy bookworm, but on the other hand they want their 20-Str barbarian to have a chance to avoid being grappled and swallowed by a 35-Str purple worm. You can't have it both ways; flat distribution or bell curve, full stats or stat modifiers, an X-point difference is an X-point difference either way and you can't make the same type of roll benefit the underdog sometimes and penalize the underdog other times. Decoupling stats from rolls, using different types of rolls, etc. just shifts the problem somewhere else and doesn't solve the underlying issue.

    Then I suppose that it's also a feature that the chance for him to do so goes up by each successive edition? Because the bonus for being trained has gone steadily down ever since 3E, and 5E also reduces the spread in ability scores.
    Depends. Some people think it's a feature when there are things that a 1st-level trained character or a mid-level untrained character can't possibly do that a mid-level trained character can do and a high-level trained character can do trivially; some people think it's a feature when there's still a chance, however slight, for any character to do anything; some people think it's a feature when everyone's baseline for success is fairly close together and different stats/features/etc. can push you off that but not too far. 3e is mostly the former, 5e is mostly the latter, 2e/4e are somewhere in between.

    The first perspective works best from a PC vs. NPC perspective (if you're pitting your weaknesses against someone else's strengths with that big of a gap between them, you probably made a bad decision somewhere and you shouldn't have a 25% chance to turn out just fine) while the third one works best from a party vs. world perspective (if the variance in a certain stat is too large then challenging parties containing an expert PC, a mediocre PC, and a sucky PC with respect to that stat can be hard), and the second one is a compromise between the two, so it's really up to you where you want that tradeoff to be
    Last edited by PairO'Dice Lost; 2012-11-26 at 05:09 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Then I suppose that it's also a feature that the chance for him to do so goes up by each successive edition? Because the bonus for being trained has gone steadily down ever since 3E, and 5E also reduces the spread in ability scores.
    I could be wrong, but I don't think that's the point.

    Applying dice with a solid curve built in - preferably 2d10 or 3d6, to maintain ranges close to a d20 - is a better solution, IMO, than basically doubling the bonuses from stats. It introduces fewer problems elsewhere in the system and allows your DC ranges to remain sensible. (Heck; take the die rolling completely out of most skill usage, as far as I'm concerned. In contests, higher rank wins.)

    Mind you, I only really think this is important for skill usage and for straight stat-on-stat contests. I think we generally accept a bit of swinginess in combat because the (usually) extended nature of it tends to bring the final results of a fight in line with expected probabilities.

    Otherwise, this is still a lot of worry over what I'm hoping is a marginal aspect of the rules. I don't expect the PCs to get into bake-offs on a regular basis, and I don't think it's a crucial flaw in the system if arm wrestling isn't modeled properly.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Plenty of stuff in this weeks Legends & Lore.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Mearls
    It's looking like only the fighter and the monk get maneuvers as a default. Everyone else accesses maneuvers through feats, and even then only a subset of them. Meanwhile, the rogue's sneak attack is likely transforming into a class feature that gives extra damage in certain situations rather than a maneuver.
    So they seem to have heard the feedback that the Rogue and Fighter looked far too similar. I'm not sure why the Monk gets to keep maneuvers; I suspect it's because they still like the idea of maneuvers getting more magical the more dice the Monk spends on them. Accessing maneuvers through feats, well, there's not really enough information given for me to work out what that means in practice.

    There's stuff about Paladins as well, but nothing really detailed.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Agreed. Players want their 20-Str barbarian to never lose in a strength-based contest against a 5-Str wizard because they don't like being shown up by a wimpy bookworm, but on the other hand they want their 20-Str barbarian to have a chance to avoid being grappled and swallowed by a 35-Str purple worm. You can't have it both ways; flat distribution or bell curve, full stats or stat modifiers, an X-point difference is an X-point difference either way and you can't make the same type of roll benefit the underdog sometimes and penalize the underdog other times. Decoupling stats from rolls, using different types of rolls, etc. just shifts the problem somewhere else and doesn't solve the underlying issue.
    The unifying factor behind both instances is the barbarian cares about her victory, possibly much more than the other side does. The real problem, I think, is this isn't reflected in the rules: There's no difference between a character that *defines* their identity by their strength (in which case it's inappropriate that they get the smackdown because of random fluke) and a character who just so happens to be strong because of other factors (in which case it's perfectly acceptable for there to be a 25% chance of losing a contest to an inferior foe).

    EDIT: Well, might as well read this thing.

    On top of this, we have the D&D spellcasting system. We're likely going to standardize casting a bit, both to keep things simpler and to make it much easier to convert from Vancian spell slots, a powers system, and so on, depending on what fits your campaign or setting.
    That's... interesting. It hasn't worked out so well with maneuvers and expertise dice, but we'll see.

    The paladin's unique abilities, and the true source of the class's power, come from the power a paladin gains by swearing allegiance to a specific alignment. A lawful good paladin protects the weak and drives back the forces of darkness. A paladin of this alignment can lay on hands, project an aura of protection, smite evil foes, and detect the presence of unholy creatures. A chaotic evil anti-paladin might have the ability to sense weakness, ravage enemies with unholy power, and exert an aura that steals vitality from other creatures. A lawful evil anti-paladin might have the power to dominate other creatures, forcing them into slavery as it subverts law into tyranny. The paladin you create might mix and match some of these abilities, depending on your character's alignment and ethos.
    No. No. No. No. No. No. No!

    The stuff above about the paladin might ... be the worst idea ever.
    No ****ing ****!
    Last edited by Craft (Cheese); 2012-11-26 at 08:12 PM.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese) View Post
    The unifying factor behind both instances is the barbarian cares about her victory, possibly much more than the other side does. The real problem, I think, is this isn't reflected in the rules: There's no difference between a character that *defines* their identity by their strength (in which case it's inappropriate that they get the smackdown because of random fluke) and a character who just so happens to be strong because of other factors (in which case it's perfectly acceptable for there to be a 25% chance of losing a contest to an inferior foe).
    I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that rolls you really care about shouldn't be able to roll low? So if you really care about hitting that orc real bad, then you get a +5 bonus to your roll? Or re-roll anything below 10? Or just automatically hit if your attack bonus is higher than it's AC (minus 10)?

    The whole point of random is that sometimes what you expected to happen, doesn't happen. You would expect a barbarian to out-wrestle a frail wizard, and usually he will, but if he always won, then why are you rolling dice at all? If you want that kind of control over what happens, then you should just abandon dice and play more free-form, where everyone just has to decide what happens.

    Or, if you don't want to go for one of those extremes (everything up to dice vs everything up to whim), then you should use some sort of compromise between the two. Which means, using house rules or DM Fiat to decide some things that you're "supposed" to roll.

    I suppose that WotC could try and hard-code in some stuff to not use the dice-rolling mechanic, but it's generally a lot easier to go from rolling to not-rolling, than it is to go from not-rolling to rolling, since the latter requires you to come up with DCs and bonuses and penalties and all sorts of other stuff. A lot of really obvious stuff you don't need to roll for are already provided for, for example you don't need to roll to see if you can walk across a smooth floor, or unsheathe your sword, or continue breathing, but somewhere in the middle things get less clear, and so it tends to default to rolling.

    If stats have been shrinking over time, that's because players have asked for it to be so. There's been a lot of talk in this very thread about how accuracy bonuses and such should be shrunk even more than they've already been.


    Edit: Also, what's wrong with the paladin? Are you mad that it has anything to do with alignment? Or that it's not lawful good only? Or something about the specific powers they're talking about?
    Last edited by AgentPaper; 2012-11-26 at 08:25 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that rolls you really care about shouldn't be able to roll low? So if you really care about hitting that orc real bad, then you get a +5 bonus to your roll? Or re-roll anything below 10? Or just automatically hit if your attack bonus is higher than it's AC (minus 10)?
    Well, yes. Though I'm tempted to go one step further and say this is a problem with stats in general. Or maybe this flu is just doing weird things to my brain.

    EDIT: And yes, the problem is that we're back to alignment-dependent class abilities and powers.
    Last edited by Craft (Cheese); 2012-11-26 at 08:27 PM.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Quote Originally Posted by Excession View Post
    Plenty of stuff in this weeks Legends & Lore.

    So they seem to have heard the feedback that the Rogue and Fighter looked far too similar. I'm not sure why the Monk gets to keep maneuvers; I suspect it's because they still like the idea of maneuvers getting more magical the more dice the Monk spends on them. Accessing maneuvers through feats, well, there's not really enough information given for me to work out what that means in practice.

    There's stuff about Paladins as well, but nothing really detailed.
    I like backing away from maneuvers to rogues and also comitting to keeping them to fighters and monks. Now that I think of it, they sound like a really good idea for monks as well and my main concern was that maneuvers become so common that they are taken for granted and other classes get additional class features on top of their maneuvers.
    And I am of the crowd that wants a streamlined 2nd Edition and the last playtest package was already starting to get too complex for me. Making the game more complex with modules is completely fine, but I really want to see a very basic core rules set out of the box. Backgrounds and Specializations are a start, but those are effectively just premade choices for skills and feats and not changing anything about the fact that skills and feats are already part of the most basic rules. The game shouldn't become more complex than it is now, at least for the core rulebooks without any additional modules (that could also be included in those books). Just give us bards, druids, paladins, and rangers and a couple more monsters and we're close to having everything we need to run a game with the most basic rules. (Which isn't to say that there isn't room to refine the existing material, just don't bloat it up at this stage.)
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    Regarding the paladin stuff: The paladin being defined by his alignment isn't inherently a bad thing, nor is the paladin being able to detect and smite evil things. It would only be a problem if CG and NG paladins couldn't do the same, if paladins don't have alternative features in case the campaign doesn't use alignment, or if people who don't like alignment-based paladins don't have an alternative...and, oh look, since Mearls seems to be talking about the paladin as if alignment is a given when elsewhere they said it would be modular, it's definitely a problem.

    Before I complain about this, I should give Mearls credit for not just making evil paladins the same as good paladins but with the labels reversed; basing paladin class features off the various aligned paladins in the 1e and 3e UA instead of just doing a search-replace from "evil" to "good" is a good idea, one I didn't actually expect to see given their BoED/BoVD track record.

    Having said that, my first issue with the stated approach is that I'm guessing the mixing and matching he's referring to would be on the basis of "here's a list of Good abilities, here's a list of Lawful abilities," and so on, which means that CG paladins couldn't get any of the abilities on the Lawful list even if they'd be appropriate--and given the lack of understanding of the law-chaos axis displayed by WotC in the past and their juvenile understanding of the good-evil axis, I'm not holding my breath for logical law and chaos lists.

    My second issue with it is the "good is helpful, evil is harmful" approach. Evil paladins should be able to heal whether they're LE (minions aren't useful if they're dead), NE (don't rely on anyone else for healing), or CE (makes the torture last longer), and since that's not mentioned I'm guessing the evil paladins will get an offensive LoH once again. It's the same mistake they made in 3e with making mindless undead evil, associating positive and negative energy with alignments, and so on.

    So while I don't object to alignment-based abilities for paladins, they should be add-ons that anti-alignment people can ignore, rather than the only paladin features, and features shouldn't be treated as good or evil unless they're actually good or evil.

    Quote Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese) View Post
    The unifying factor behind both instances is the barbarian cares about her victory, possibly much more than the other side does. The real problem, I think, is this isn't reflected in the rules: There's no difference between a character that *defines* their identity by their strength (in which case it's inappropriate that they get the smackdown because of random fluke) and a character who just so happens to be strong because of other factors (in which case it's perfectly acceptable for there to be a 25% chance of losing a contest to an inferior foe).
    The difference between a 30-Str high-level barbarian and a 30-Str monster is that the barbarian has his strength because he's The Strong Guy and invested bunches of resources into it while the monster just has that Str as a function of size and HD, but they still have the same Str score. There shouldn't be a difference between someone who defines themselves as strong and someone who just happens to be strong if they have the same score--if Batman tries to fistfight the Hulk, he loses, he doesn't get partial credit because he trained for a long time to get that strong and he'd be upset to lose to someone who "just happens to be strong" because of gamma rays. As AgentPaper said, we really don't care about hurting the barbarian's feelings if he cares about winning arm-wrestling contests, we care if the flavor of "this guy is really strong" matches the mechanics by ensuring that he's good at strength-based stuff.

    Grappling big things in 3e is a problem not because we care about the barbarian's feelings, but because high-level monsters have higher Str, higher size bonuses, and higher BAB than martial characters, so the guys who are supposed to be big, strong, and skilled actually aren't in the grand scheme of things. The solution to that is to stop throwing HD and Str at things to make them challenging and normalize HD to CR.

    The 3e devs tried to compensate for undead having no Con by giving them lots of extra HD and Unholy Toughness-type boosts, when they could have just kept the Con score, explained it as the strength of their animating magic, and avoided the problem. They tried to compensate for the Tarrasque being nothing but a bunch of huge numbers by giving him a bunch of huger numbers, when they could have given it some actual abilities and avoided the problem. They tried to compensate for large creatures not hitting hard enough by giving them stupidly-high Str, when they could have just instituted size-based bonuses to carrying capacity and increased damage by size and avoided the...oh wait, they did that, and still gave everything too much Str.

    Once you have 10th-level barbarians with 18 Str facing things with 10 HD, no more than +10 BAB, and less than 25 Str (the way it should work in 3e and the way they seem to be going in 5e), you've focused on the actual problem. In that contest, the barbarian doesn't lose the Str-check game just by existing, and he doesn't need a +20 to his grapple mod to out-grapple something. In fact, a +3 or +4 will put him on par with this monster, which is coincidentally what rage gives in 3e.

    So now both of these guys "just happen" to be strong. You don't have the barbarian auto-losing to a purple worm (in fact it's closer to 50/50), nor does the wizard, so now we can address the inter-PC disparity. The class whose schtick is "the strong guy" should get features that interact with that, the same way the factotum gets features to show that he's "the smart guy." The barbarian should be able to reroll Str checks, count as a larger creature, gain bonuses on Str-related checks, something else, or two or more of the above. Martial classes who don't define themselves in the same way shouldn't get the same benefits. The fighter might lose arm-wrestling contests to a wizard, the barbarian probably won't, problem solved.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

    I will admit that it's not my ideal form of the paladin (I've mentioned before my "paladin's code" idea), but I don't think it's a bad thing. If any class is going to have anything to do with alignment, then it's paladins, after all.

    Still, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they end up getting changed to not use alignment, or at least have the option to do so.
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